


You make a hard case.

by birbteef



Category: Transformers (Bay Movies), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Hatchlings, M/M, Transformer Sparklings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-08
Updated: 2017-05-08
Packaged: 2018-10-29 14:30:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10855938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/birbteef/pseuds/birbteef
Summary: Starscream called in some help for the rest of the brood while he was on Earth. Things don't go as planned.





	You make a hard case.

**Author's Note:**

> This is definitely just a silly "what if" scenario we were talking about on twitter. I know all the children on Saturn die, but...maybe they don't have to. Also Knock Out and Breakdown are darlings and my favorites so of course id put them in here.

The very moment Starscream’s life signature went out they turned to look at each other, both sets of optics locked in a shared feeling of bewilderment and concern. Neither of them said anything for a long moment, both trying to decide if it was just an accident or if something horrible actually happened.

Breakdown spoke up first, tapping into the comm unit to broadcast a general confirmation at Starscream. “Hey boss, you there?”

Knock Out tapped in within seconds as there was no reply, “Commander Starscream? We request your coordinates.”

There was no reply.

Breakdown chittered for a moment, setting down the sleeping sparkling he had been holding to grasp the sides of the table. This was entirely unprecedented and unexpected. 

They had been called in to make sure the rest of the hatchlings came online properly. Neither of them had any experience with hatchlings but Knock Out was Starscream’s primary care physician, and likely one of the last Decepticons around that had any medical training at all.

Knock Out had been more under the impression that Starscream implied there were maybe thirty hatchlings in this brood, not closer to three hundred. 

Many of them were still in their pods, unhatched and sleeping peacefully in stasis till their time would come. Many of the already hatched had been taken with Starscream to Earth. What their purpose would be on the little waterworld neither Knock Out nor Breakdown could guess. They hadn’t been filled in on any of the details. 

The clutch was massive though, and with the very recent snuffing of Starscream’s signal the two mechs were left staring at each other with no clue what to do. 

Breakdown kept frantically pinging at Starscream’s signal, worrying his hands into the side of the table as the little sparkling grumbled at him. 

Knock Out stalled, looking around at the rest of the brood. “Don’t panic.” He said under his breath. “Breakdown, don’t panic.” 

The larger mech took a moment to vent, calming himself as his mandibles chittered slightly. “This is bad, what do we do?” His pinging stopped after a moment, brushing his field up against Knock Out’s.

Knock Out turned to him, posture straightening as he affirmed the situation in his mind. “We...carry on as ordered till we hear any different from the higher ups.” He reached his hand out to the little hatchling Breakdown had set on the table, giving it loving scritches with his gold tipped claws. “We were asked to oversee the hatching and development of this brood while the...contributors...are away. So. Uh. Till we know otherwise, that’s what we will do.”

Breakdown nodded slowly, agreeing with him. "They can’t get mad at us."

Knock Out let out a nervous laugh, "heh, well, um, I'm sure this could somehow bite us in the aft. Their...uh...Starscream isn't coming back." Knock Out looked around with a confused look, as if taking in the hatchlings for the first time again. "What is Starscream to these darlings? Surely he didn't birth all of them?"

"You don't think he sired them do you?" Breakdown gave him an incredulous look, glad that the topic was changing. “Because, you know, I never pinged him as the sireing type.”

Knock Out picked up the little hatchling from the table, bouncing it gently in his arms to ward off the beginnings of sniffles. "I can't imagine he would have. I don't even know that these are his!” he held up the little thing to inspect it’s features. “You know just as much information as I do, and that's nearly nothing."

Breakdown grunted, bending down to pap another sparkling on the head that had started to try and climb its way up his leg. Knock Out noted that he was starting to calm down, panic attack momentarily averted. He asked, "How do you tell? They don't really look like him though, you're right about that."

"I never said that," Knock Out retorted. "Just that I'm not entirely sure they’re his brood. There's, uh, Primus there are so many of them. I’m not even sure this is a single clutch, it may be a couple of clutches just in the same place."

Breakdown scooped up the leg crawler by its little scruff bar. “Well then who else maybe helped make these little guys? You think they’ll come back?”

Knock Out shrugged. “I only got a message from Starscream. As far as I know he was the only mech on this planet. Clearly that wasn’t the case of course, but, uh, it’s what I expected when I came here.” He set the sparkling in the crook of his shoulder, letting it curl up in the softly glowing yellow pistons. “They clearly have genetic material from at least three mechs. Who they are I can’t really say at this stage.”

“Will you be able to later?”

“If we stick around that long, maybe.”

Breakdown gave him a small glare, “you don’t mean to imply we’d leave them, do you?”

Knock out merely shrugged, scritching the chin of the hatching in Breakdown’s arms. “The only thing I’m implying is that we were paid to help the hatching. The only person truly in charge of this brood is now dead, and I don’t particularly want to be responsible for the hand rearing of three hundred or so bitlets.”

Breakdown looked almost offended. “They’re children! We can’t just leave sparklings unattended!”

Knock out didn’t answer him immediately, thinking about it while he made the hatchling purr. “If we do, that is the /only/ thing we will be doing for the next couple hundred vorns. You realize this.”

“We talked about having some of our own at one point.” Breakdown remarked.

“I thought that was a fleeting fantasy.” Knock Out replied. “After so long I had given up on it.”

“It was, yes. Same. But, we can raise these ones. It doesn’t have to be.”

“That is literally kidnapping.”

“It’s not like they have anyone else.” Breakdown raised the little hatchling to his face, giving it a kiss on it’s soft plated helm. “There’s no one here Knock Out. If we leave they will die.”

“It’ll give us an...excuse not to go back into the battle front.”

“Exactly.”

“Primus, there’s so many of them though.” He turned to look back into the field, glowing blue eggs surrounding them on every side. “Neither of us have ever done this before, I don’t even know a thing about sparkling development because it’s so rare. I think my textbooks had roughly a paragraph each on them just telling to consult a more dedicated guide.”

“Are...are there more dedicated guides?”

“I really don’t think so.”

“Then make one.”

Knock Out turned, staring at his conjunx. “What?”

“You’ll have the experience. We’ll figure it out ourselves. Then you can write it. That’s how all those books got written didn’t they? Not everyone just came out knowing how things worked. They had to do it a little bit and figure it out and then they wrote it down for others.”

Knock Out grinned at him. “You’re making a very hard case for this.”

“I really want it.”

“You do?”

“Yes.” He picked up another hatchling that was clambering at him by its scruff bar. “I really do.”


End file.
